Auction 12
Lot 037:
By Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, printed at the new printer of Kliva. The background to the writing and printing of this book is the “Get of Kliva” controversy, following the get organized by the Gaon Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, rabbi of the city and grandfather of the Tiferet Yisrael, to a couple from the city of Bonn. The husband was a little mentally unstable, he fled Germany for England for fear of death, and on the way divorced his wife in Kliva (also in Germany). The sages of Frankfurt and Mannheim overruled the get with the claim that the husband was not fit to divorce (“get sota”), and there were harsh exclamations broadcast against the Rav of Kliva. Despite them, sages of the generation: the Sha’agat Aryeh, Rabbi Yitzhak of Hamburg; Rabbi Shaul of Amsterdam, and his uncle, Rabbi Yaakov Amdin, the “Noda MiYehuda,” and more, ruled in accordance with Rav Lifshitz, that the husband was considered a person capable of divorcing. The book mostly deals with this controversy and its aftermath; in the introduction, Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz describes in depth the war that was declared against him by those who opposed the get, and the book weighs all aspects of the case that were used to approve the get and the various answers to the issue. On pages 31-32 are printed answers by Rabbi Aryeh Leib, Av Beit Din of Hannover, Rabbi Yitzhak of Hamburg, and a report with harsh exclamations against the sages of Frankfurt. Most extant copies of this text have these pages omitted since they are extremely harsh, or at least partially printed with changes to one page, but in this rare copy the pages are without excision. This is the only Hebrew book printed in Kliva, since all of the printers in Ashkenaz refused to print it so as not to take a side on the issue. On the rear binding is glued an alternate page 32, to show the censored copy, it would seem they prepared the page to exchange with the original but that it was never done. 66, 69-120 page. 20cm. No anterior binding nor spine, the rear binding and a number of pages are disconnected, stains, generally very good condition.
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